Ivan G Rice

After the pipelines came the market for the gas turbine for the petrochemical and refinery industries mostly located in the gulf coast region of the US.  The GE Houston office sold a number of gas turbines to these two industries.  From 1950 to 1960 units were sold to Union Carbide, Texas City and Puerto Rico, Humble Oil at Baytown,  American Oil at Texas City, Tenneco Chemical at the Houston Ship Channel and Gates Rubber in Oklahoma City.  All of these units were for mechanical drive service.  There was a single frame size 5 generator set sold to Shell Oil near the Ship Channel.

(This is the second and final part of the series. Read the first part 

The American Oil order was important because a Frame 5 12,000 HP single shaft unit had a 13,000 HP booster extraction condensing steam turbine coupled to the gas turbine to drive a 25,000 HP Elliot air compressor to feed a fluid cat cracker. The exit of the cracker fed a large Combustion Engineering  CO boiler.  I worked out the details of this boiler for American Oil using input from Combustion Engineering and I also came up with the the booster steam turbine idea.   This was the largest air compressor for this service at the time.   A second Frame 5 gas turbine also drove a process gas compressor in the new cracking plant. This booster concept is now used for many single unit combined cycle plants.  GE presented me with a big “Breakthrough 1960” award for this application and sales work and gave me the first Hamilton solid gold case electric wrist watch with my name engraved on the back which I still have but not working.  It was not  reliable and was dropped by Hamilton.

About 1958 one of the gas companies, Columbia Gulf, decided to install a Pratt and Whitney GG4 jet with a  Cooper Bessemer power turbine package in a transcontinental pipeline.  The unit ran fairly well and more orders followed.  After a few years Columbia Gulf switched to the Rolls Royce Avon Jet engine..  This engine proved to be a winner and a number more units were purchased not only from Columbia Gulf but also from Trans Canada Pipelines.  Later on these pipeline companies used the larger GE LM 2500 and the R R RB 211 to pump gas.

This positive experience then opened the door in the 1960s for aeroderivative peakers by the dozens to be purchase by the electric utility companies following many heavy duty units from GE and W.  The unties became short of power because of the use of home air conditioners.  They had not properly planned for this surge in use of power.  First it was Pratt and Whitney with their GG4 packages and it was Curtis Wright with the Rolls Royce large Olympus.  The electric utility companies did not particularly like the jet engines but they had no other choice.  This market in a few years became saturated and then it was back to selling the heavy duty units for base load service by GE and W.

Gas Turbines for Electric Utilities Stumbling in the Dark

In the meantime the electric utilities were asking for much larger gas turbines and neither GE or Westinghouse would not or could not offer them larger units.  GE and Westinghouse seemed to be floundering around not knowing what to do for the electric utility market in terms of gas turbine size or application. They seemed to be wondering around and stumbling in the dark.  The combined cycle was going no where.  Both companies did not understand the relationship of compression ratio, firing temperature and exhaust temperature.  The fully fired exhaust boiler only provided a modest improvement of about 4 % efficiency gain. The power ratio between the steam turbine and gas turbine was greatly in favor of the steam turbine.  The gas turbine was only a wart on the back of the steam turbine hog.   The electric utilities thought the small size was not worth bothering with for the small gain in efficiency when gas was selling for about 20 cents a million BTU.

GE spent a lot of money on the the supercharged boiler patterned after the old BBC Velox boiler and Bechtel made a costly full design of such an arrangement for GE but the electric utility industry was not interested.  Westinghouse offered a massive steam injection cycle but the utility companies   thought such a machine would fog up the whole country side according to what Jim Stevens, chief engineer for Westinghouse gas turbines at the time, told me years later.  But all of this groping, ignorance of the DCC cycle thermodynamics and not knowing what to do was about to soon change.

There were two potential industrial areas the could possibly apply the gas turbine.  The first was the paper industry that historically generated all of its electricity.  However the large extraction condensing steam turbine filled their needs very well and the gas turbine was out of luck here.  However, GE did manage to sell one small 3500 KW unit to a paper mill near Houston.  Its exhaust heat generated low pressure steam for the plant. The second area was the chemical industry that uses lots of electricity.

Dow Chemical Company generated all of its own electrical power at its home plant and at its large Freeport, Texas plant.  Dow liked the GE large extraction condensing steam turbines and had a number of them.  Studies by Dow in 1963 showed that the gas turbine generators offered an improvement in its overall plant efficiency.  Therefore, in 1963 -64 Dow approached GE to see if GE would make them a larger gas turbine than GE's old two shaft 20 MW unit that was considered to be unreliable and  a dog because of an internal bearing oil leak GE was unable to fix . GE persisted trying sell the unreliable two shaft machine.  Jack Turner who was in charge of  Dow's power generation at Freeport finally gave up and turned to Westinghouse (W) to see if  W could help Dow purchase large and reliable gas turbine generator units.  Dow wanted to buy several of them.

Westinghouse saw a great opportunity to at last crack the GE/ Dow monopoly and sell electric generator sets to Dow and crack it W did.  Dow met with W and W offered the 25 MW  301 unit to Dow and promised to have a much larger 501 40 MW  unit for Dow in a couple of years.  Dow in 1964 placed an order on W for the first 25 WW 301 GT generator set in 1964.  Dow followed with 3 more 301s and then when the 501 became available Dow ordered 5 of the larger machines making a total of 9 large units.  Each unit exhausted to a fully fired high pressure steam boiler.  Each GT was supercharged with an electric motor driven forced draft fan delivering 20 inches of water pressure.  The air was then cooled by water spray before entering the gas turbine to obtain more net power. The idea of this scheme was proposed by a young English Bechtel engineer whose name was Richard (Dick) Fosterpeg.   Bechtel had the contract with Dow to install the gas turbines.

How well did the FD fan supercharging work?  It worked fairly well but years later Jim Stevens who was chief engineer for W gas turbines told me that the scheme was not all it was cracked up to be.  He told me that the FD fan was not as efficient as quoted by the fan company even with a well designed exit diffuser.  Also Jim said that Fosterpeg used the psycrometric chart to calculate the water spray cooling and should have used the steam tables.   At the added pressure this calculating procedure gave an unfavorable distorted answer.  This scheme was dropped in a few years.

There is more to the W/Dow GT story.  Two W sales engineers whose names were Al Smith and Tom McMichael left the  Houston Westinghouse sales office early in 1969 to form a new company called Power Systems Engineering (PSE) .  They did this to design and build a  300 MW CC power plant near the Freeport Dow plant to furnish dedicated power to Dow.  The plant was named  The Salt

Grass Combined Cycle Power Plant. They purchased 4 W 501 gas turbine and 4 HRSGs.  No export steam was  to go to Dow.  A W condensing steam turbines was connect to each gas turbine.  The modern day CC was about to emerge.   In a practical sense, three more large gas turbines were added to the Dow GT list making a total of 13 units because all the electric power was dedicated to Dow.  Later on Dow purchased the plant.

As a point of interest, the new PSE office was located next to our new Deltex De Laval office and I occasionally talked with Al and Tom as I knew them both.  They in late 1969 offered me a job and a piece of the action if I would join their new company.  Having just joined Deltec I did not accept their offer.  They both became wealthy with their new company and so would I have if I had joined them.

Dick Fosterpeg in late 1965 or early 66 left Bechtel and joined W in Philadelphia as part of the W GT thermodynamics team.  He then made a comprehensive study of the combined cycle.  He found  that the maximum CC efficiency was obtained when the HRSG was not supplementary fired.  When supplementary firing was added immediately there was introduced a penalty of about 5 inches of water back pressure added reducing the gas turbine output.  Also more steam was generated to add more steam turbine power a lower efficiency.  He used a standard W 2400 psig 1000/1000 degree F steam turbine as a reference.

There was also another important point that came out of Dick's study.  He concluded that the GT exhaust should be at least 1050 degrees F and preferably 1100 to achieve the maximum 1000/1000 degree F throttle and reheat steam temperatures and a maximum stream  turbine efficiency.  In order for this desired exhaust temperature to be obtained there must be the right relationship of the GT compression ratio and the firing temperature.

Over the years, prior to Dick's study, the design of the industrial gas turbine was based primarily on cost and GT output and not on the efficiency of the combined cycle.  On the other hand, the jet engine family of GTs from the beginning was based on weight and maximum efficiency as there was no CC involved.   As higher firing temperatures were made available then the GT compression ratios were increased to obtain maximum efficiency.

Therefore the aero engines have lower exhaust temperatures and higher compression ratios and their CC efficiencies are lower. Today at the elevated firing temperatures the compression ratios are now upwards of 50 whereas the compression ratios of all the large industrial gas turbines are about the same being  23 to 24 as they all have about the same firing temperatures and are all targeting the desired 1100 exhaust temperature for maximum combined cycle efficiency.  However, there is one exception and that is the reheat gas turbine where the compression ratio is now about 36 and the exhaust temperature is about 1200 degrees F.

Dick also stated that the the stack temperature should be a low 300 degrees F at the time the limit to prevent excessive acid corrosion in the economizer/stack gas cooler.  To obtain this low of a HRSG exit temperature a multiple drum multiple pressure HRSG had to to be used and an admission steam turbine was also necessary to expand the extra steam. This is the same waste heat boiler and steam turbine scheme I invented way back in 1955.  Dick said to obtain the lowest possible back pressure and  therefor the lowest GT power loss extended surface boiler tubes had to be incorporated in the HRSG design.  A special HRSG therefor was necessary.

Dick had his findings published  in a magazine with appropriate graphs and heat balances and it was not long before the GE GT thermodynamic expert in Schenectady, Leroy Thomlison, agreed with Dick and at last all the pieces of the CC puzzle were put together to obtain maximum CC efficiency.  The modern day CC was at last clearly defined, specified and born.  From then on it was upward and onward for the industrial gas turbine CCs and they rapidly grew in size and efficiency.

A special HRSG had to be obtained with multiple drums to get the 300 degree F stack and extended surface boiler tubes had to be applied to obtain a minimum back pressure on the gas turbine. The throttle pressure had to be 2400 psig with 1000/1000 degree temperatures.  The major boiler manufacturers such as Babcock and Wilcox and Combustion Engineering were not interested in making this special boiler.  However, a lesser know boiler company,  Henry Vogt, grabbed the opportunity and agreed to make such a special boiler for the newly defined CC.  Later on other companies started to offer this special HRSG.

The CC took many twists and turns to become the backbone of today's CC.  First it was BBC who in 1935 and then in 1939 developed the Houdry units and then the first stand alone 4000 KW gas turbine.  Then Whittle and Ohain developed the jets during WWII for airplanes.  After the war GE took the lead with the industrial gas turbines through the units for the UP railroad and the pipeline pumpers followed by GTs for the petrochem and refinery plants.  It was Glenn Warren and Bruce Buckland  who held the rains.  Westinghouse also started making heavy duty gas turbines.

W and GE stumbled around for several years with the CC development when in the 1960s W grabbed the ball with a suitable large gas turbine for the utility companies when it came out with the 25 MW 301 and then the 501 40 MW  units.  The 501 rapidly rose to 60, 80, 100 and then 120 MW in size.  The leaders in this effort were Jim Stevens and Augy Scalzo, chief engineers for W.   I helped re design the first l00 MW 501 D gas turbines in 1980 in Saudi l Arabia.  Saudi had  purchased 19 of these “Big Hummers”, as Aramco called them.  This unit had many problem that had to be fixed and I helped W solve them as a consultant for Saudi Arabia  (Aramco).

GE built a new independent manufacturing plant in Greenville, South Carolina to build gas turbines.  A few years later W built a similar plant in Round Rock, Texas near Austin.  This plant depended on the Philadelphia plant for parts.  The market for gas turbines suddenly went to plot and W had to abandon this plant.  W lost a lot of money in the process and also GT market share.  This happening was the start of W's down fall and subsequent sale to Siemens of Germany.  However, MHI of Japan continued with the development of the W  large gas turbines and is today one of the leaders in gas turbines.  MHI got a big boost when the Japanese Government sponsored the ill fated reheat GT which led to MHI's success when it carried on further GT R and D and the W designs.

GE finally came out with the new 7F gas turbine rated 150 MW in the 1990s and was then back in the game.  They had built a few closed cycle steam cooled units, the first under a DOE contract.  The number one was a  frame 9  that went to England.  The others, Frame 7s, went to California.  All of these units were too complicated getting the steam in and back out of the rotating blades and GE dropped this design.  They had a combined cycle efficiency of  just shy of 60%.

ABB of Switzerland saw the wisdom of the Fosterpeg/W disclosure and designed their GT24 and GT26  reheat gas turbines, the first one a GT24 being installed in the US.  ABB challenged GE, W and MHI with these high exhaust temperature units and a number of them were sold world wide.  The ABB reheat gas turbine was patterned after my patents on the reheat GT.  Freddy Haeusermann, head of the project, rewarded me monetarily for my effort in Baden before the turbine was announced.  These gas turbines are still being made today by the Italian company Ansalado Energia of Switzerland.

In reviewing all the history of the combined cycle,  I would have say that Westinghouse was the overall CC leader because of the Fosterpeg disclosures,  the Dow sponsored Salt Grass CC and when W started building the larger 301 and 501 units for the utility companies.  When W went out of the jet engine business it hurt them by loosing spin off from government jet development money.  Today GE is now the leader with its new air cooled frame 7 and 9s with CC efficiencies of over 62 %.

The story above has traced the coming about of the modern day steam and gas turbine combined cycle.  It took about 70 years of development and understanding of the CC to get to where we are today.  Many dedicated engineers were involved.  There were many ups and downs, starts and stops and forward movements along the way.

There is still room for the CC to grow with the advent of the new CMC materials about to make a jump forward for the CC possible.  We have seen the development of better blade cooling and better materials and processes such as directional solidification, single crystal blades, thermal barrier coatings (TBC)s and now ceramic matrix composites (CMC)s developed for the gas turbine to bring about the CC as we know it today.  Soon CC efficiencies will be over 65 %.

Articles

Combined cycles: Now at 62%, next 65%

Today the world has available a large and very efficient green natural gas burning gas turbine and steam turbine combined cycle (CC) power plant to generate Tesla electric power. There have been many twists and  turns, starts and stops and ups and downs to get there.  Many dedicated engineers were involved.  It has been a rocky road to travel, but here we are.  General Electric seven months ago in France broke the World record in power plant efficiency when its latest 9FA gas turbine CC  power plant burning natural gas recorded the efficiency to be a whopping 62.22 % when generating 605 MW.   At the time of the announcement GE stated that an efficiency of 65 % and higher will be reached in three short years. There are significant gas turbine improvements coming such as the use of CMCs.

Lee S. Langston in the just out March 2017 issue of ASME Mechanical Engineering Magazine makes a bold statement in his series As the Turbine Turns “Electric Power and Natural Gas Synergism” when he writes “This proven performance makes CC plants the most efficient heat engines in mankind's history”.  He goes on to say that the gas turbines is most suitable for peaking, mid range and base load operation.  He talks about how clean burning they are using natural gas fuel.  He also says that these plants can be installed quickly at half the cost of coal plants and one fifth the cost of nuclear plants. The CC emits far less CO2 than the coal plants as Lee points out. He mentions that the US (and I say other parts of the World) now has an abundance of natural gas because of the development of recent shale fracking.  Also I might add that our sweet crude oil production is way up because of  fracking.  North America will become oil and gas independent soon with the promise of the XL pipeline from Canada, the cross over Dakota pipeline and the change in the Mexican laws allowing outside companies to drill there in partnership with Pemex.

I am now over 92 and have lived through the development of the efficient CC having graduated from the University of Arizona in 1950 and then joining General Electric testing the first El Paso Natural Gas Company's 5000 HP GT pumpers.  I then supervised the the installation of several of these units in Arizona before being assigned as a gas and steam turbine application engineer in Houston, Texas.  I became personally acquainted with many of the pioneering GE gas turbine slide rule engineers.  I was part of the evolution of the CCs as will be presented.  Because of my background my perspective is  founded on my experience with GE.  However Westinghouse also played an important part in the evolution of the CC as will be discuss.  I might also say that there is much information about the industrial gas turbine on the internet written by historians and professors. They give many useful facts and figures but do not know the nitty gritty of the matter as to why things happen and have not gotten their noses rubbed into the ups and downs of happenings.

Let us start from the beginning with our CC story.  Brown Boveri Company (BBC) by 1930 had developed the velox boiler and there was a French engineer by the name of Eugene J. Houdry who was hired that year by Vacuum Oil company, later to become Sun Oil Company (Sunoco), to develop a new process of cracking crude oil to make high octane gasoline and other petroleum products.  He did so  with a new process named after him and knowing about BBC'c vortex boilers ask BBC to design and build Sunoco a new compressor – expander train for a pressurized cat cracker.  It cost a lot of money for an electric motor to drive the air compressor that potentially could be saved.

Using Sunoco data, BBC responded and said they could build a single shaft train consisting of an axial flow air compressor with a compression ratio of 4.2 and an axial flow flow expander.  Their analysis showed that extra power was available with the 1150 degree F entrance temperature to the expander.  Therefor they  added a 1000 KW  60 hertz generator to the train through a speed reducing gear.  Actually 900 KW was produced when the unit was placed in operation.  The successful Sunoco operation marked the first actual gas turbine by by definition.

BBC having the experience and know how of the velox boilers and the Houdry units in toe, in 1937 decided to design and build a stand alone gas turbine.  They build such a unit and it ran for the first time in mid 1939 developing 4000 KW at a little over 17 % efficiency with a 1350 degree F TIT burning distillate.  This event marked  the beginning the the gas turbines as we know them today.  The unit was very large,  bulky and heavy.  It had a huge single combustor mounted over the compressor and turbine sections.  Engineers from all over the World came to Switzerland to see it run.  The US engineers said it was far to big and heavy to ever be made to power an airplane.

There were three engineers who were most favorably impressed with the new gas turbine.  The first was Sir Frank Whittle of England and the second was Hans von Ohain of Germany.  These two engineers independently, not knowing what the other was up to, shrunk the BBC unit and made a jet engine out of it to power the first jet fighter planes. The rest is history.

First United States Industrial Gas Turbines

Who was the third engineer?  He was a famous General Electric steam turbine engineer whose name was Glenn Warren.  He headed up all of GE's steam turbine designs and business.  He thought the place to start was an industrial gas turbine for a railroad locomotive.  He, with the help of the American Locomotive Company (Alco), laid out an arrangement on paper for a gas turbine electric (GTE) locomotive.  The second world war came along and Glenn had to temporarily shelf his gas turbine plans.  He had to concentrate on developing and making turbo super chargers for piston plane engines and later to make the first US jet engine patterned after the first Whittle engine.

After  WW II, in 1947, Glenn dusted off his GTL study and asked Bruce Buckland,  Alan Howard and others  in GE Steam Turbine work to design and build a 4500 HP single shaft industrial gas turbine suitable for a railroad locomotive using steam turbine design practices.  This unit was called the heavy duty frame 3.  Bruce had previously designed the first axial flow compressor for the GE TG100 turbo prop engine in Schenectady.  This project was transferred to Lynn.  Bruce and Alan stayed in Schenectady to develop the first locomotive gas turbine.

GE built 2 prototype 4500 HP units. They had an efficiency of about 17 per cent.  The first unit was used to build an Alco gas turbine electric (GTE) locomotive.  This unit was sent to an Eastern railroad for a few months and then transferred to the Union Pacific Railroad Company (UP) for extensive testing (1948 to 1949).  UP asked GE/Alco to furnish them a batch of 25 of these GTE units burning bunker C oil which was very cheap at the time.  Bruce Buckland and his team solved the problem of treating the bunker C by washing the nasty stuff with water, centrifuging it and adding epson salt to neutralize the corrosive vanadium pent oxide so the turbines could run about 5000 hours before the combustion liners and turbine blading had to be replaced because of hot corrosion.  Then UP ordered another batch of  30 of the 8500 HP GE /Alco units which were called the “Big Blows” by UP.  They were rated at 6000 feet elevation and 100 degrees F inlet.  At 1000 feet and 80 degrees F the unit would produce about 12000 HP.  This was called the Frame 5 unit.  After about 16 years UP had to abandon all of their gas Turbine locomotives because the price of bunker C jumped sky high when the refineries found a was to crack the gummy stuff to make gasoline out of it. Westinghouse also built two 4000 HP gas turbines in 1949 for railroad use but did not get any more orders.  The first burned distillate and the second tried to burn residual fuel.

The second GE  prototype frame 3 was sold to an electric utility company that had a 40 MW steam turbine generator plant.  It was located at their Belle Isle pant in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  The frame 3 exhausted to a feed water heater to improve the plant efficiency and produce more power.  The unit ran astonishingly well burning natural gas and in a few years the company bought a second unit. The first unit marks the first time in the USA that a gas turbine was used to generate electric power.  Another giant step had thus been taken in the evolution of the combined cycle.  This unit has received world wide publicity over the years.

US Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Gas Turbines

After the single shaft frame 3 was designed GE re designed the unit and made it into a two shaft 5000 HP regenerative cycle unit with a 25 % cycle efficiency for the transcontinental pipelines.  The regenerator was a large vertically standing tube type heat exchanger.  At the time natural gas cost about 20 cents per thousand cubic feet and therefore efficiency was not overly important.  The reciprocating engine efficiency was about 38 %.  However the maintenance costs of the reciprocating engine was very high compared to the gas turbines.

GE in late 1949 sold 28 of these units to The El Paso Natural Gas Company to pump natural gas from west Texas to California.  GE also sold 4 units to Northern Natural Gas Company and one to United Gas Company.  Then the orders stopped as the reciprocating engine companies improved their engines and made them larger.

Something had to be done.  The GE business was on the chopping block by corporate GE but Glenn Warren was able to keep it going.  He had faith in the industrial gas turbine.   GE then formed a sales team in 1952 in Houston, Texas in an effort to sell  more units to the transcontinental pipeline companies located there.  The Houston team was headed by Aaron E. Holland and Bill Strong.  I was asked to be the third member of the team to make pipeline flow studies with HP requirements and station locations and assist in telling the pipeline company how easy and quickly the turbines could be installed.  Another salesman was located at Dallas to call on Texas Eastern Pipeline Company in Shreveport near Dallas and I was asked to assist him.  His name was Jim Rockwell.  GE still had the salesman in El Paso, the manager of the office Mr. Vankirk, to call on the gas company there.

The effort payed off and GE soon received orders from Tennessee Gas Company, Trunkline Gas Company, Transcontinental Gas Company (Transco) and Texas Eastern Gas Company.  By this time the frame 3 gas turbine was up rated to 6700 HP and then shortly thereafter to 7600 HP.  GE also the Frame 5 to sell and Jim Rockwell was successful in selling Texas Eastern several of these lager 12000 HP single shaft units.  GE also sold 4 more derated 5000 HP units to El Paso Gas company.

Transco had 3 steam turbine stations each with three 5000 HP De Laval steam turbines and centrifugal compressor units located in Louisiana having been installed by Stone and Webster.  The efficiency of the stations was rather poor being about 22 %.  Transco needed to add horsepower to the center station and decided to install a gas turbine there.  I came up with the idea of exhausting the frame 3 gas turbine to a 600 psig – 750 degree F steam (station's system) waste heat boiler followed by an over sized feed water heater to heat feed water for all 3 steam turbines thus being able to get more power from the steam turbines and improve the station's overall efficiency.  Transco made GE furnish the boiler/heater with the gas turbine package.  GE was hungry for an order so accepted doing so.

The boiler selected was from Struther Wells.  It had horizontal extended surface boiler tubes. Thermodynamic wise the boiler and feed water heater worked very well,  but after operating a few months the boiler horizontal tubes started to leak badly.  GE had a problem so GE helped Struther Wells re designed the boiler, put in new tubes and added a circulating water pump.  This work was supervised by GE's field engineer John Uhr.  Thereafter the boiler worked just fine.

This re design effort led GE to start making and selling boilers to go along with their gas turbines.  This seemed to be a good idea at first and in a couple of years they sold a supplementary fired boiler that developed severe problems.  Paul Lahay was placed in charge of the boiler effort.  In short order corporate GE closed down the GE boiler business.  Recently GE got back into the boiler business when it acquired Alstom from France and the boiler business came with the take over package.

All was not lost when GE dropped the boilers because GE learned a lot about boilers and the special designs need for gas turbine.  GE was also starting to learn more about how to design gas turbines for heat recovery.  Also a young salesman for the boilers was Douglas (Doug) M. Todd.  He was a go getter for the GE boilers.  He and I had many meeting together as he was eager to learn all he could about gas turbines and their application.  After the boiler close down he went to the GE gas turbine department as a salesman.  He rose quickly in the organization to become the sales general manager of all the GE gas turbines.  He became an expert on coal gasification and wrote many papers on this subject.  There was another spin off.  The name of the waste heat boiler was changed by GE  to “Heat Recovery Steam Generator” (HRSG).  This name stuck with the industry and is used to this day.  Another learning step had been taken by GE in the quest for the Combined Cycle only to go backwards a bit when it went in and then out of the boiler business.

In 1955 Texas Eastern Gas Company wanted to look at the possibility of a combined cycle for their frame 5 gas turbines.  I was asked to make a study as to how to go about making CCs out of the frame 5.  I, at the time, came up with the idea of the two drum boiler, the second one of a lower pressure and temperature so that the boiler stack temperature could be lowered for better cycle efficiency.  An admission steam turbine was applied to accept the extra steam at the lower pressure and temperature and expand this extra steam to produce more power.

I presented the report containing steam charts and drawings to Texas Eastern and sent a copy to GE Schenectady.  Very soon thereafter I got a phone call from Jack Mangan of the GE gas turbine department.  He thought I had a  new and good idea with the multi drum concept and thought I should apply for a patent.  He sent me all the GE information an patents but I was not interested and only wanted to apply and sell gas turbines.  I must say though that this concept of using multi drums at two  steam temperatures and pressures was a big leap forward for the Combined Cycle.   However nothing came of the  study as Texas Eastern did not develop the CC.

This idea proved  to be another important step in the evolution of the the combined cycle but not many people know how the multi drum HRSG came to be.  GE grabbed the idea and ran with it. Westinghouse only sold a few gas turbines to the pipeline companies and was not a very big factor.

The evolution of the combined cycle power plant- I

This is the third and final part of this series. 

After much playing the game (collecting hints of final selection), I was in Stavanger and it was suggested we to get to London the following day as P&W seemed to be prevailing. In that meeting with Mathew-Hall and Mobil there were only two of us, myself and Len Green. The question was “Where is your legal team?” Our response was that we did not require one. This was real surprise as P&W brought a huge delegation of legal council. Needless to say, the negotiations proceeded smoothly to the delight of the Mobil team and the rest is history. A long time later, discussions with Ivan Rice (GT Consultant) revealed the extent of rivalries within the consortium.

C-W Power Systems agreed to satisfy most participating countries with equipment and construction work assigned, where possible, to USA, Norway, UK, and Holland. This was accomplished by requiring additional logistics and overall project management. The work was completed and the Platform Modules were delivered on large barges and towed to the Statfjord platform to be hoisted by a huge sea-going, self-propelled crane named ‘Sea Troll’  operating out of Stavanger, Norway.

C-W was not successful with the next phase of the Statfjord North Sea development. We pioneered the way with innovation and creativity which others benefited from and copied.  BRUSH became a major supplier of generators for the LM2500 series of gas turbines and the subsequent upgrades with increased ratings. That is a most pleasant memory and contribution of the 70’s as well as the many friends made at BRUSH.”

Now back to my part of the saga.  Septimus told me that he had been to the top of the three very high legs before the top deck was in place.  He was elevated there by a rack and pinion open frame cage and at the top all that was around the each leg was some wooden tomato crates to keep him from falling over board.  This must have been eerie and scary for him.  He also told me that he was on the finished platform to inspect the 6 LM2500 units. He flew to Statfjord A on a helicopter from Stavanger and had to wear protective suit in case of a forced down to help protect him from the icy cold waters.  Sep followed the whole job from inception, to bidding, to design. to fabricating, to assembly, to testing and to the installation on the platform.  He deserves a lot of credit for all the hard work he did in pioneering a game changing new way to power the large platforms.  What a success Statfjord A has been.

After the two orders for the GE LM2500 packages were placed on Curtiss-Wright there remained a large number of details that required engineering attention.  I continued as Mobil's gas turbine consultant to take care of many of these item for a period of time until the first of October of 1976.   At times I was not needed and could stay home in Spring, Texas with my family and carry forward other consulting work for other companies which I did.  However, the main need of my services involved the selection of the gas turbines and packages.  I also helped get the gas turbines on Beryl A ready to run and spent 10 days on and off the platform supervising the final installation details until October 18.

After the orders were placed there were several things that needed attention right away such as the inlet air ducting, the air filtration system, the couplings, the controls, the design of the enclosures so that the gas turbines could be easily and quickly remove to mention a few.  All of the Curtiss-Wright drawings had to be carefully reviewed and closely checked.  On September 16 I wrote a  3 page letter at Mobil's request outlining 27 rotating equipment items remaining to be monitored and supervised.  I still have a copy of this letter in my files.

I wanted Mobil to incorporate a fourth stage of inlet air filtration to better protect the LM2500 units.  This proved to be costly and it took a lot of effort to get Mobil to finally order this extra filtration.  Bob Bolfing of Mobil Houston and I even visited the US Navy testing facilities in Philadelphia to get their input to use.  We were able to read restricted reports through Gene Weinert but not copy them.  The US Navy helped us a lot with the LM2500s.  We were determined to make the LM 2500s a success.

There was one area where I spent a reasonable amount of time and that was in regard to the engineering details needed after Statoil, through Mathew Hall, ordered 3 Kongsberg 1500 KW small auxiliary gas turbine generator sets for the platform.  About 4 to 5 MW of power was needed before there was any wells drilled and when the drilling took place and there was no fuel gas or crude to pump I had recommended ordering three 2500 KW 501K Allison generator sets, but was over ruled by Statoil because they wanted as much Norwegian content as possible.  The 3 units ordered were too small and without any off shore experience.  After the order was placed I was asked to follow up on many details by working directly the Jan Movil, President of the Norwegian Kongsberg company.

had already placed on order 3 Allison units through Mathew Hall and Jim Struthers of  Allison and this order had to be canceled.  The Kongsberg units proved to be too small and unreliable when placed in service which caused trouble when Mobil had to run one of the LM 2500s continuously at 4 MW as will be explained in the post script.  There were many details to attend to on the Kongsberg units such as the inlet filtration, the duct work, the duel fuel capability, the controls, etc which was my job to sort out through Jon.  Together we put the units in shape the best we could.

Mobil Oil told me not to make a fuss of this wrong decision because Stat Oil was still upset that the 6 LM2500s were ordered instead of the T P & M  GG 4s.  I was told by Bob that I  got what I wanted with the GE LM2500 orders and not to up set the apple cart and not open up a can of worms. T P & M was still trying to reverse the LM 2500 order.  There was nothing I could do but drop the issue. I was asked to witness the testing of 5 of the 6 LM2500 gas turbines at GE's plant in Evendale,Ohio which I did.  All of the units passed with flying colors.  I also made several trips to the Curtiss Wright plant in Woodridge, New Jersey to handle details and communicate with the various Mobil and Mathew Hall engineers.

I worked hard for Mobil and Statoil and I got along very well with the ones I directly worked under.  They treated me with respect and as a full time employee with all the privileges they had.  They gave me a lot of authority which I exercised as needed from time to time.  I became good friends with many of them and remained so for a number of years.  I enjoyed working for all of them. Together, we made a great contribution for large platforms through the use of the LM2500.  We opened up a new market for the BRUSH electric generator.

There are several items that are not necessarily part of the above story that might be of interest to the readers.  I will mention some of them as follows:

 true indicator of the out come of the Statfjord A game changer, as manifested through the  aero gas turbines and BRUSH generators, is the large number of  BRUSH generator orders obtained as of the end of 2014 given below from all packagers.  Also listed on the right is a breakdown of the GE aero gas turbines Statoil has ordered to date.

544 LM2500 units and variants                5  LM1600 uinits

59 LM5000 units                                 123 LM2500, PGT25 and PGT 25+ units

698 LM 6000 units                                  10 LM6000 units

LMS 100 units                              ____

1360     Total                                            138     Total

Recently, GE announced that it has received 10 more orders for the LMS 100s, 5 at the 100 MW rating and 5 at the new plus 118 MW output, to back up the growing southwest US solar and wind power, all to be equipped with BRUSH generators. The above list for the BRUSH generator orders shows that GE aero continues to use the BRUSH generators for their generator packages.  Engineer Jim Prochaska of Houston GE Power and Water recently told me that the BRUSH generator design, with the modern endframe bearing mounting, fits their packages better than the GE design, is competitively priced, and that BRUSH gives them very good engineering support, on time delivery, installation support and after market back up and that GE Power and Water- Aero is well pleased doing business with BRUSH.

The technical report I and Erichen wrote was well received and the partners found out about it and wanted a copy to use.  Aramco asked for a free copy.  Mobil management (Clifford Case) offered to sell it to them for $35,000 US dollars, but Aramco thought this was too much money.  Several years later when I was consulting for Aramco I found out that Aramco had gotten a copy of the report through T P & M for free.  Evidently either Statoil, Mathew Hall or some one in Mobil had boot legged a copy to T  P & M trying to get them to poke holes in the report to get the order reversed.  Later on Mobil Oil gave each partner a copy free.

Statfjord A is a World famous platform and has been a huge crude oil producer and most successful no doubt to a great extent because of the GE LM2500 gas turbines as well as the Elliot compressors and the BRUSH electric generators. The web has a number of interesting articles and photos of this platform.  By the year 1998 some of the LM2500s had run over 100,000 hours without being replaced according to an article by GE.  Today the run times are no doubt much higher. The platform was overhauled by Statoil a few years ago and is now expected to keep on producing crude until the year 2020 to give over 40 years of production.  My reports used data by Mobil oil that predicted, starting in 1980,  no more than 20 total years of production and full production for only 8 when production was to start dropping off rapidly for 12 years.

As the design of the top deck continued the weight kept going up where a point had been reached early in 1975 when it became necessary for Aker to re design the tops of the three concrete legs to hold this ever growing weight.  50,000 tons was a lot of weight to carry.   This re design was done, but it delayed tow out a full year because there was only a 3 month window of opportunity that was safe to tow the giant completed platform to its designated  location.  This extra time was well used and did not overly rush us in the design of the platform.  However it delayed income from the crude for a year.  Weight became critical and the lighter weight of the aero engines proved to be an advantage.  Mobil was glad they had selected the light weight LM2500s.

5 . When the LM2500s were first placed in service one unit had to be run at about 20 % load continuously to            supply power for the drilling part of the platform.  The small 1500 KW Kongsberg units were too small and not reliable.  Under this light load condition the first stage compressor bladed developed a problem.  These blades had dampening struts about 2/3rds of the way out that locked together at about 70 % speed, but at lower speeds the surfaces would rub and excessive wear took place.  GE had to replaced these blades with struts having much harder surfaces to withstand the rub. This correction was costly to both GE and Mobil.  The LM2500s ran fine otherwise.

The Phillips Petroleum Company in London was very helpful to me and Mobil.  I knew Harry Doyle from Bartlesville GE days originally and ran into him in London.  We met a number of times and he gave me valuable operating information and tips as he was head of the engineering for the very large Ekofisk platform located in the English part of the North Sea.  He helped me stiffen the speed increasing gear box for the Mobil Beryl A compressor train as they had to replace the gears every 5000 hours because the movement of the platform would twist the gear casing back and forth causing the gears to wear badly.  I filled the Clark 24 inch base under the gear box with non shrinking concrete.

Liklewise, the US Navy with the help of Gene Weinert, hept us out considerably sharing with us the operating and maintenance experience they had with the GE LM2500s, especially regarding the inlet air filtration on the open sea.

Late in 1975 Mobil was planning two more platforms for the giant Statfjord field (Phases II and III), Statfjord B and Statfjord C.  John Manning in charge of the planning respected my views as an engineer and asked me to write a report for him on using 4 legs instead of 3 which I did. The top side weight had risen to 50,000 tons and was stressing the 3 leg support.  Four legs would give better weight support and provide 3 legs for drilling, but it would cost a lot more to make.  Also 4 legs would be more stable.  In the end, Mobil elected to use 4 legs for B and C.  Brown and  Root did the engineering for B and probably also for C.  Top side designs of  B and C were pretty much duplicates of A and used the 6 gas turbine arrangement as for A.  Platform B was placed a short distance to the south of A and C a short distance to the north.  Top production of the three was over 850,000 barrel of crude a day, with A being the leader at 320,000.  Statfjord A remains King of the three to this day and is still producing and will do so  until the year 2020.

Mobil Oil was very good to me and let me use their new satellite phone after hours in the evenings to carry forward my ASME work and to phone my wife.  The 5 hour time difference made it possible for me to phone the US after 6 PM London time and get the US at about a 1 PM.  This was a big help to me.  I could dictate letters to my wife, Carolyn, for her to type and send out to committee members and staff.  As a point of interest, during 1975 I was asked to become Region X ASME Vice President which would have been a stepping stone to the presidency.  However, Carolyn and I were too tightly strung out with work and we had to turn the job down.  It would have been time consuming and costly to us involving trips to each ASME section in the region and trips to national ASME meetings.

The Mobil Oil president in one of his meetings gave praise to me and  Arne for the fine report we had produced for Mobil and the contribution we had made according to what I was told by Bob Bolfing.

Mobil, with my consulting job in London, made it possible for Carolyn and me to visit a several European countries and places during the two summers we were in London that otherwise we could not have done ((Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, France (Paris), Germany (Berlin), Poland (Warsaw) and Russia (Moscow, St Petersberg and Kiev)).

Saga of the first GE LM2500 powering a BRUSH ac generator – III

This is the second part of the series, the first part can be read 

We had another meeting at the Mobil office Monday morning about 9:30 and listened to Bill Millard's story about the LM2500.  We had yet another meeting with the Elliott Compressor people and in the afternoon and in the evening Carolyn and I at 7:00 PM attended our school PTA meeting.  On Tuesday we met with the Ingersol Rand compressor people in the late morning and had an internal Mobil meeting in the afternoon.  Finally on Wednesday I packed my stuff and caught a plane back to London and flew with both Arne Erichen and Bernie Evans.  Our US field trip was now over and we had accumulated a lot more data to use in making a wise decision on the selection of the drivers for Statfjord A platform.

On Friday, February 7, we met and discussed the possibility of using the 2500 KW Allison 501-K13  gas turbine for the platform auxiliary power – for start up and drilling –  and asked Mathew Hall to obtain a quote for 3 such generator sets.  The load for this service was 4 to 5,000  KW and two units would be needed and third for stand by to make an ideal arrangement.  This engine had been thoroughly tested and developed  by the US Navy and was being used for the DD 963 destroyer program.  On Saturday I phoned Jim Strothers of  Allison at his home to get the ball rolling.

Mobil management told me that they now needed a full report as to what to select for the main platform power units and compressor drivers. They gave me a date of no later than the last of February.  I, with the help of Statoil engineer Arne Erichlen, had to move to get it done by then.  We had all the data we needed and it was a matter of putting it all together and assembling all of my field reports etc. to complete the report.  There was a lot of writing and typing to do in a hurry as well as a number of graphs to be drawn.   After making a decision Mobil through Mathew Hall could go out for the initial screening bids and then for the final bids there after which was Mobil's practice.

On February 20th I flew to Stavanger from London.   Arne Erichen and I then worked continuously on the report, literally day and night.  I stayed at the SAS Royal Atlantic Hotel and worked on the report out of my room with Arne.  We worked most of Friday on the report.   We worked all day Saturday until 9:30 PM.  On Sunday we worked most of the day until 3:00 AM the next morning to get it ready to be typed.   On Monday morning we had the typing started and in the afternoon we flew back to London and holed up at the Westbury Hotel.  I hired a typist to type on the report until 11:30 PM.  We continued to work until 2:00 AM and then went to bed.

The report was shaping up and on Tuesday morning we had the Mathew Hall typist continue on the report.  We continued on it at the Westbury Hotel using my hired typist and one from Mathew Hall.  On Wednesday February 26th at about 11:00 PM the report was done all but for correcting a few typographical errors.  We both signed the cover of the report and gave John Schoenthaler the original and one copy at 11:30 PM.   Arne promised to have the errors corrected the next day in the office and have an appropriate number of copies run off and numbered for Mobil.  We got it finished in time for Mobil management.  It was over one inch thick and full of facts and figures and as accurate as we knew how to make it because we knew it would be closely scrutinized by Mathew Hall and Statoil who wanted to purchase the R- R Olympus or the T P & M GG 4s.  We were recommending the purchase of the GE LM2500.

I returned to Houston on Thursday morning, February 27th and wrote a report cover letter from my Houston office the next day and mailed it to Mobil Oil, London.  The fat was now in the fire.  I now had the ASME Gas Turbine Division annual conference to worry about to be held in Houston that year the coming week including a private meeting and dinner with Tom Sawyer and Sir Frank Whittle on Saturday afternoon and evening along with my wife, Carolyn, at the Regency Hotel and then a conference TV interview on Sunday as I was chairman of the division.  Without Carolyn and her extra ordinary love and help we could not have pulled all of these things together successfully, but we did it, we did it together.

The conference went fine and I even had a couple of meetings with the Mobil engineers that week to boot including a luncheon meeting with Mobil and Dr. Rizk of GEC, UK. There were ASME executive meetings to chair and committee meeting to attend also.

Ordering 6 C-W GE LM2500 Compressor and Generator Packages 

Even before the technical report was finalized and issued, Mobil Oil had already pretty much decided to use the GE LM 2500 to drive the compressor trains, but the gas turbines to drive the electric generators were yet to be chosen.  Sixty Hertz was favored because of size and weight.  There never was a question about using the BRUSH generator because it was considered by Mobil to be a  very reliable and  a quality field tested product.  There was a question whether to install two 50 % compressor trains or three.

The 3rd one had yet to be justified.  However neither Statoil nor Mathew Hall was convinced that the LM2500 was the way to go for the compressors or the electric generators.  Statoil seemed to favor using the T P & M GG 4 whereas Mathew Hall wanted to use the R–R large Olympus for the compressors and the generators.  The selection of the compressor manufacturer was yet to be decided.   Also the packager to use had yet to be decided.

After a rest in Spring, Texas, I returned to London on March 9th, arriving early the morning of the 10th, to start working on the above problem areas.   After checking in at the Westbury Hotel I phoned the Mobil office and went there for a meeting to start working on the above.  By Wednesday we started elimination some of the bidders and selecting what compressor manufactures to use.  On Thursday we started in on the electric driven reciprocating compressors  – 5 or 6 to use-- and the flow turn down of the centrifugal compressors  from 80 % to 50 %.  In the end, 5 Ingersoll Rand 3800 HP electric motor driven recip compressors were selected for the high pressure compression duty to require a large part of the on deck electrical power.  By Friday we reviewed whether to use 2 or 3  50% compressor trains. Bob Bolfing of Houston played a key part in these overall decisions to be made.  Work continued into the next week and on Wednesday, March 19, the big bid evaluation meeting was set with Mathew Hall for Friday.

The long awaited evaluation meeting took place in the afternoon on Friday, March 21, as planned.  Bob Bolfing and I were ready for the scrap that was bound to take place.  We had it out and won but not without a fight.   Mathew Hall wanted to use the R-R Olympus to wave the British flag all the way and Statoil the T P & M  GG 4s.  Bob and l wanted the LM 500.  Arne Erichen of Statoil was caught in the middle because he had his signature on our technical report which upset Statoil.  I sure was glad I got him to sign the report and so was Bob.  One member of Mathew Hall became quite obnoxious and started screaming at us.  Bob abruptly jumped to his feet and shouted him down and said he was not technically qualified to even have a vote in the matter.

The Statoil engineers and purchasing people were polite but were insistent on getting the GG 4 with its FT4 power turbine.  Finally the Mobil Oil manager, Clifford Case, got up and said in the end it was Mobil's decision to make and it would be the LM2500 as recommended by Bolfing, Rice and Erichen.   This firey, boiling, red hot, turbulent three hour meeting was then over and we all got up and left the meeting room.  A closed internal Mobil Oil discussion meeting immediately took place and we wrote a letter for Clifford Case to sign confirming the selection of the GE LM2500s for the compressor packages.  In attendance were:  Case, Bolfing, Rice, Schloentlhaler and Erichen.  The door was thus wide open to use the LM2500s for the generator packages for reasons of duplication and operation.

This decision was important to Brush because it opened the door for them to sell many more electric generators for the GE LM2500 which indeed they have done as stated at the beginning of the story.  The decision was upsetting to the GE Heavy Duty group as they had been trying to keep the 3600 RPM LM2500 off the electric power generating market.  Pratt and Whitney and Rolls Royce were also upset.

We continued to work on the remaining problems to be resolve.  I returned to Houston on March 27 and went back to London the first day of May.  We solved most of the outstanding bid problems and justified using three LM2500 20 MW generator sets and three for  the compressor trains by March 20, but a final full second evaluation report was not issued by me and Arne Erichsen until the April 4.  At first Statoil was upset at Arne, but later on the company realized that the right decision had been made and he rapidly rose within the Statoil organization.

I was able to get GE to store a spare gas generator in a canister on the platform for one year free of charge after start up through the help of Arne who did the actual negotiation over the phone just before the order was placed.  He and I got along very well and was very good to take my advice on matters of all kinds.  He was a big help with the report.

The order for the LM2500s was broken down into two parts, one for the compressor packages and one for the electric generator sets.  On Thursday morning, April 24, Curtiss-Wright was given an order by Mathew Hall for three LM2500 compressor packages incorporating Elliott compressors.  Septimus van der Linden picked up the order for C-W from Mathew Hall just before noon that day.  He was ever so happy to get it after such a long struggle.  A week later Sep picked up the second order for three more LM2500 packages with BRUSH 60 Hertz electric generators from Mathew Hall on the morning of May first, again on a Thursday.  In the end Bob Bolfing and I got what we wanted and so did Mobil Oil for a real breakthrough and game changer.

Curtiss-Wright Selection of the Brush Generator 

Curtiss-Wright elected to use the BRUSH generator for good reasons.  I only had a couple of meetings with the BRUSH engineers in London before the order was placed because Mobil fully accepted the use of the BRUSH, but C-W had in depth meetings investigating using the BRUSH.  Septimus van der Linden has written me his story of as to why C-W selected the BRUSH electric generator.  C-W was the very first packager to apply the BRUSH generator to be driven by a large aero type engine.  John Brown and others had already used the BRUSH for the GE Frame 5s and Mobil was using 3 of them for the Beryl A platform.

Septimus was working for C-W at the time and played a key role in bidding the packages, selling them and then following through all the way with the engineering details at the Wood ridge, New Jersey plant, in London, Holland and in Stavanger.  Quoted as follows is what Sep has written specifically for this story.  He was VP of  Marketing for C-W Power Systems at the time (1970 – 1983):

"There is always a story behind every headline. There is a starting point, a trigger point that begins an unknown path to success. This narrative is about that moment an order was placed by Curtiss-Wright for three BDAX 70-66PH CACW 20 MW 60 Hz generators to be driven by three Aero-derivative LM2500 Gas Turbines. This would be the first application for these TG Sets on a large North Sea oil production Platform by Statoil/Mobil for the Statfjord oil reservoir, the largest North Sea petroleum find.  This introduction is getting ahead of how BRUSH and Curtiss-Wright (C-W) began their successful business relationship which eventually led to the historic Statfjord Platform, the largest of its kind ever built and never duplicated with 120MW of GT capability.

In 1970, C-W decided to form a Power Systems Division to utilize their J65 aero engine for the power sector. Bill Pietrucha and I decided to join this venture but, on my insistence, to use the Rolls Royce (RR) Olympus engine of 20 MW capability as a gas generator. The deal was  made with RR and design work on a suitable Power Turbine was urgently launched as well as on packaging concepts (Modularization); the ModPod series of power units saw the light of day, causing an immediate challenge to the established suppliers of packaged power plants.

C-W had a need for an independent generator supplier and our search brought us to BRUSH. How would this play in the US?  Charles Francis Brush, the founder, was American born which made a good story and overcame any concerns that may have arisen. Furthermore, the end bell bearing designs of other suppliers did not meet our criteria, whereas the pedestal bearing design of BRUSH was the winner.

Bill Pietrucha and I, together with Lenny Schatz, our (C-W) Power Systems Leader, made several visits to BRUSH at their Loughborough facilities to learn about the design, manufacturing and support services. We were aware that BRUSH was a supplier to John Brown, a licensee of GE, but we were not too concerned about them in the market place. The facility was old but the quality of workmanship very good, especially as major supplier of traction motors for the British Rail system.

BRUSH management, including Managing Director J.M Durber (fondly known as ‘Mac”), and Sales and Marketing Director Brian Page must have been impressed with our upstart company and the brash young innovative engineers who didn’t hesitate to charge at giants in the

Power generation field; it must have been mutual trust or confidence or the British spirit of adventure that resulted in the decision to “Let’s give it a go.” Having secured agreements with BRUSH, the C-W Power Systems group went to market aggressively.

There was great support from Fred Robertson and Dennis Holey at BRUSH who made the market entry much easier with sales and technical information.  One could not have wished for more from the whole Loughborough organization. The first Unit - City of Norwich, Connecticut USA

Our response to the requirement for a 20MW “Peaker” unit was accepted, after evaluation in a public bid.  C-W’s  respected name in aviation as producer of the Bristol Siddeley Sapphire Jet engine known as the J65 stepped forward as a contender for power generating units, using a British supplier of turbine engines (RR) and generator manufacturer (BRUSH)  combined with Yankee ingenuity; quite a team. Incidentally, the sister City was Norwich City in the UK.

The first generator order from C-W to BRUSH was written and issued by Bill Pietrucha from the Project Group. The inauguration of this “First” was quite an event staged for the citizens of Norwich, who now would have dependable peak power support. In addition to the (C-W) leadership team, the Mayor of Norwich, BRUSH and RR dignitaries and local council members were in attendance. There was a special message delivered from the Mayor of Norwich UK to the Mayor of Norwich CT, USA. The remote start button was activated by the Mayor and the C-W ModPod 20 unit came to life. This was the start of C-W’s ModPod (Modularized Power on Demand) packaged power systems that enjoyed global success with BRUSH as the exclusive generator supplier.

The need for large units soon became evident to meet market demand, and the ModPod series covered 20/25/30 MW ratings as well as double-ended generator drives requiring generators of 40/50/60 MW; even larger machines were considered. This development opened up a new window for BRUSH for larger generators and also Power GT suppliers other than C-W. Our Power Systems group was in a hurry and, by 1975, several “double-ended” ModPod systems were sold and installed.

Based on early success, C-W Power Systems Marketing and Engineering group saw no limits for special opportunities for ModPod systems. One of our former Sales Engineers located in Houston suggested we respond to a bid that Mobil initiated for the Statfjord North sea platform. A small specialty offshore engineering company would provide conceptual designs for large modules that could be barged as complete self contained facilities and lifted on to the sea-bed concrete support structure hosting the base platform.

After much consideration, C-W Power Systems decided to venture forth: 3 x 20 MW Generating units and 3 x 20 MW Compression units. Wow! Six ModPod units utilizing the RR Olympus engine, coupled to the well proven C-W two stage power turbine. RR with 580 marine gas turbines sold

 brought experience of operating in the extremes of ocean conditions. This was no small venture, ‘Modularization’ beyond just the packaged units resulting in module assemblies of 1350 ton and 650 ton, respectively. Four shipyard-assembled modules that could be barged and placed on the Platform to eventually form the completed structure of recovering oil and re-injecting natural gas to keep the field pressurized.

There was no hesitation to use the compact and serviceable ModPod 20 with the Brush TEWAC generator for marine environment application. The Control and Electrical auxiliary modules were compact and factory assembled and tested as well for ease of installation in the Platform Modules.

Overall, the proposal was in contention and favorably reviewed.  We took the complete Modularization concept into consideration, defining space and weight which was important criteria as well as the size and weight of the structural steel that formed the equipment platform Modules.

With a large international consortium such as Statoil/ Mobil and their different partners there were obvious preferences for different suppliers that would bring business opportunities to their country of origin. Thus there were many discussions to decide which prime mover would be selected for the project. Aero-derivatives were preferred over frame machines already on platform service; they were light weight, compact and quite efficient and totally serviceable on the platform or easy modular component replacement.

Gas Turbine consultant Ivan Rice was tasked by Mobil to evaluate the two Aero-derivatives, Olympus and P&W GG4 engine. The UK was leaning towards the Olympus, and the GG4 as a US supplier also had support. The missing link was the LM2500 from GE which had Marine application experience for the US DD 963 type Destroyer, but had never been applied as a stationary generator drive and or high power process type compressors. The LM2500 was applied as a gas generator for high speed power turbines driving pipeline compressors. Ivan Rice interfaced with the very same key figures that C-W (myself) interfaced with, such as Bob Bolfing (Mobil Houston), Berne Evans (Mobil London) and Arne Erickson of Statoil and many at Matthew-Hall in London; there was always a good relationship.

While this was going on behind the scenes, I made many trips to London Matthew Hall,  the overall platform designer and engineer selected by the Consortium, who were also coordinating the selection of the process compressors C-W was offering including Elliott who had a licensee in Holland Thomassen, who could also do full load testing of the train. The other contender was Nuevo Pignone of Italy—again many debates and technical overviews, however the Thomassen/Elliot train was accepted.

Mobil convinced their partner Statoil that the LM2500 Gas Turbine with its lighter weight and more efficient 6 stage power 3600 rpm turbine would be preferred. The word came down:  C-W was in contention and could we incorporate the LM2500 GE gas turbine into both the Generator and Compression ModPod modules? If this is what the customer wanted, why not? We were already familiar with the LM2500 as the Gas Generator was considered an option for two gas generators on one power turbine and double ended a Mod Pod 75.

The task was set, BRUSH was locked in, as well as Thomassen, so some modifications were required to incorporate a single gas turbine engine with a 6 stage turbine as a single assembly. Not quite just a swap out, but a new design to accommodate the differences of air flow, inlet and exhaust ducting as well requirements to prevent inlet freezing conditions in North Sea winter. The new unit became the ModPod 20 HE (high efficiency)

Johnny Miller of GE was a constant caller from GE selling the virtues of a new generation of Prime mover that changed the industrial market place. Our visits to Evansdale, Ohio, were most informative. It was strange to walk around a former Curtiss-Wright WWII facility, very similar to Woodridge New Jersey.

Weight and space was a major consideration for a Platform of the size envisioned that also hosted a complete hotel to accommodate the workers and operators of this million barrel per day enterprise. Aero engines had proven to be highly reliable and more efficient than other options for prime movers. Early operation would be on fuel oil, lower fuel consumption meant less platform storage requirements.

The ability to provide on board service in confined areas was another clear benefit to minimize down time for inspections, routine and major inspections. The C-W design allowed for easy removal of various engine modules, or complete engine removal and replacement of a spare unit that would be housed at a service facility in Stavanger, Norway.

Within any international consortium there are undercurrents and subtle rivalries which impact any project and have to be dealt with diplomatically.

‘The largest oil field yet discovered at that time in the North Sea.’ It is situated about 180km due west of Sognefjord in blocks 33/9 and 33/12 on the Norwegian Continental shelf and about 185 km north-east of Shetland with about 11.11% of the reserves in the British sector in blocks 211/24 and 211/25. On the Norwegian side Statfjord is owned by the Statoil/Mobil Group.

On the British side it is owned by Conoco/BNOC. While Mobil is the operator for the field, the two groups have reached an agreement about joint development and production of the field. Production was scheduled to start in late 1978 and last for 25-30 years.

At the end of 2013 a decision was made to extend operations till 2020 targeted for 74% gas recovery with modifications and rebuilding the facility with $3.7 billion investment. The original target for oil was 40 % recovery but actually reached 66%.

Saga of the first GE LM2500 powering a BRUSH ac generator - II

This is the first part of a three part series by Ivan G. Rice with quoted inputs from Septimus van der Linden. 

Here is the saga of how the first General Electric LM2500 aero gas turbine was selected to drive the first 60 Hertz BRUSH 20 MW electric generator for the Mobil Oil/Statoil 290,000 ton “Statfjord  A” deep water North Sea platform (water depth 145.3 meters).  The top decking alone weighed 50,000 tons, the weight of a battleship.  The core of the story is based on the various Mobil and Statoil documents I have in my files and the daily entries I made in my consulting engineering log book as well as the various reports l prepared and submitted to Mobil Oil Company –  all used to jog my memory.  The Statfjord A platform is still in operation pumping crude and is expected to do so until 2020 since its start up in November of 1979.  This is a very famous world renowned platform.

The original budget to build this platform was some $800,000,000 when crude sold for about $4.5 a barrel, but when finally finished it cost $1.2billion but crude had risen to $10 a barrel to more than pay for the extra cost.  It was designed to produce 300,000 barrels of crude a day but consistently produced 320,000 of sweet crude to sell at a premium price.  It was part of Phase I and set in North Sea Block 33/9-12.  It was a huge success and made a lot of money for Mobil, Statoil and the other ten part share partners. The Statfjord A success catapulted young Statoil into the big league of oil companies and put it on the world's oil map.  Statoil, a nationally owned company, headquartered in Stavanger, Norway and started in 1972, retained 44.44 % interest in the project and had the option to take over its operation after start up which they finally did.  Mobil Exploration Norway Inc was given 13.33 % interest for its part in the overall design of the project.  Mathew Hall Engineering of London was selected by Mobil to do the mechanical engineering part and the Aker Group of Norway did the steel top deck structural and Condeep the concrete part in Stavanger.

The selection of the BRUSH/GE LM2500 20 MW turbine generator sets, 3 in number, and the Curtiss-Wright packages was a truly pioneering breakthrough and a very significant game changer.  It  was a most interesting experience the writer had as a consultant for Mobil Oil that took place in 1975.  Up till this time, smaller light weight gas turbines had been used including the Rolls Royce Avon for offshore service and the heavy duty larger gas turbines such as the GE Frame 5 units had been successfully applied on large platforms such as the Phillips North Sea Fisk platform in the English southern shallow water sector.  The LM2500 had been successfully used for driving a fleet of US DD 963 type destroyers and pumping natural gas, but not to produce electrical power even though the aero power turbine ran at 3600 RPM to drive the fan for the C 5A Air Force cargo plane.  This all changed.   As of today, BRUSH has supplied over 

  generators, all driven by the GE Aero based drivers including the total family of  2500s, 6000s and LMS 100s derivative spin offs and including those sold to Stewart and Stevens before GE took over and several other companies such as the pioneer C-W.

An account of just why Curtiss-Wright selected using the BRUSH generator for the Mobil package has been given to me by consultant and president of BRULIN Associates LLC Septimus van der Linden of  Chesterfield, Virginia.  He has related to me how C–W selected the first BRUSH electric generator for the first ModPod 20 R-R Olympus gas generator/C-W power turbine peaking package in 1970 for the City of Norwich, Connecticut.   C-W  was very pleased with the electric generator and the working relations with BRUSH.  Then C-W started using these generators for all their packages, including the ones for Mobil. Other packagers started using the BRUSH generators as well.  Later on near the end of this story, details will be given as relayed to me by Sep on the Brush generator for the Mobil platform.

Wen we think of the BRUSH company, including the writer, we think it was started by an English man by the name of Charles Francis Brush (1849 – 1929),  probably because of his English sounding name and because the parent company is now located in England.  In fact, Brush was an American born on a farm near Cleveland Ohio, got a degree from Michigan University, and started the US BRUSH company in Cleveland (Brush Electric Light Company) and a second BRUSH company in England (same name) with headquarters in London, both in 1878.  He became interested in arc lighting and started making DC generators for this up and coming lighting system.  These lights use to flicker a lot and he came up with a patentable way to control the carbon rods to eliminate the flickering.  The two companies became very successful and he made a bundle of money.

He then sold out the US company to the Thompson-Houston Company in 1889.   Later in 1892 this company joined the Edison Company to form the present day GE Company.   He then retired and did no more electrical work, but the English company flourished under his name and after the Tesla/Westinghouse success with AC power in 1890s the English BRUSH company started making AC generators and other electrical equipment to help satisfy the rapidly expanding world-wide electric power market.

Today, BRUSH is the largest independent world wide manufacturer of electric generators and has three large plants, one in England, a second one in Holland and a third in the Czech Republic.  A fourth and huge plant is now ready to open in China, all because of the American inventor/developer Charles Francis Brush.  The company is presently named the Brush Electrical Machines, Ltd.  or simply 

Beryl A Mobil Oil North Sea Platform with Heavy Duty Gas Turbines

After spending 19 years with General Electric as a steam and gas turbine application engineer, I joined De Laval in 1969 to become its Houston, Texas  Deltex manager of packaging of aero gas turbines driving De Laval pipeline and process compressors.  The first part of May of 1974 De Laval decided to transfer their packaging operation to Trenton, NJ and asked me to move there.  Neither I nor my family wanted to make the move and we decided to stay in Houston.  I had many gas turbine friends and contacts and therefore I believed I would have no problem in finding a new permanent job or becoming a consulting engineer.

Within a week of leaving De Laval, my engineering friends in Mobil Oil phoned me and asked me to help them out on a platform being designed in London for the North Sea, the platform being named Beryl A which was to produce some 200,000 barrels of oil a day.  At first I turned Mobil down, but they kept calling me back for help with Worley Engineering to engineer the design of the installation of  3 John Brown/GE/BRUSH Frame 5, 20 MW gas turbine generator sets and one GE Schenectady built Frame 5 two shaft 30,000 HP Frame 5 gas turbine driving a train of 3 Clark re injection compressors. The two shaft unit had already been tested and sent to Stavanger, Norway and set on the Condeep 3 legged steel reinforced concrete platform, but not yet fully installed.  The three key Houston Mobil Oil senior engineers involved were Bob Bolfing, John Leonard and Al Lobrick with Bob being the leader.  Bob and John kept calling me back.  They had selected the driver equipment for the Beryl A platform.

I finally agreed to go to London for a month or two to help them out as it was summer time and it had been a long time since I had passed through England during WW II.  I was at the time chairman of the ASME South Texas section having gone through the chairs and was a member of the ASME Gas Turbine Division (later to become the IGTI of  ASME) executive committee.  ASME activity was low during the summer for the South Texas Section job so I could spend some time in London without any neglect of duty.  Off I went to London.  I left Houston on Sunday, May 19, 1974 and arrived in London the morning of May 20th.

In a month or so I had the engineering part of job under control and had witnessed the testing of the 3 John Brown/GE/BRUSH Frame 5 turbine generator units in Glasgow and had been to Le Harve, France checking the Clark reciprocating and centrifugal compressors.  Low and behold Mobil Oil at this time had been given a contract with Statoil of Norway, for a 13.33 % interest, to design, build and start operating a much larger platform to be located in the huge and largest North Sea petroleum find in deeper Norwegian waters.  It was to be designed to produce 300,000 barrel of oil.  It was part of Phase I and was to be set at Block 33/9-12.   Mobil asked me to carry forward the selection of the gas turbines, generators and compressors, the heart of the platform, and follow through with the engineering details.  This would take at least a year.

After much discussion, I made a deal with Mobil.  I offered to work for them 3 weeks out of the month and then be able to fly back to Houston for one week without pay so I could carry on my ASME South Texas Section work and that of the ASME Gas Turbine Division and be with my family.  Mobil agreed to these terms.  In the end I made some 22 first class trips back and forth between Houston, London and Stavanger paid for by Mobil.  Working for Mobil was enjoyable and they all treated me as a full time employee and gave me a lot of authority and respect.  I liked the work, but my wife, Carolyn, wanted me back in Houston on a permanent basis.

Mobil Oil/Statoil Statfjord A Platform with Aero-derivative  Gas Turbines

Turbo Power and Marine (Pratt and Whitney) had been having meetings with the Mobil London engineers earlier in 1974 and also the Statoil people trying to persuade them to seriously consider using their large light weight GG 4/PT4s for their next platform, Statfjord  A.  They did a good job in convincing them of the merits of their large aero engines for the North Sea.  However, the Houston Mobil engineers were strongly in  favor of the heavy duty GE Frame 5s.   I was caught in the middle.  Mobil management of the Statfjord platform charged me with making a thorough investigation of the aeros and then make a recommendation as to their use.

They told me to spend all I needed and go where I wanted to go and dig deep with the investigation.  After all, a billion US dollars was at stake.  I had a young Statoil engineer by the name of  Arne Erichsen to help me with the investigation and the report and I badly needed his signature on the final document.  I wisely used him in this regard as the reader will soon find out.   It was important to have the Statoil company support through Arne if l were to be able to have my recommendation stick as the Statoil people were in favor of  the Pratt and Whitney GG 4 gas turbines and Mobil Houston engineers wanted the Heavy Duty GE machines.  You can see the position I was in and that I had to come up with a thorough, factual and convincing report.  I was given one vote in the matter and had to sign the final Mobil/Stat record sheets. The mechanical London engineering contractor, Mathew Hall Engineering, had one vote, Mobil Oil Houston had one vote, Statoil had one vote and Mobil London had one vote  What a final meeting and vote taking we had.  More on this knock down and drag out meeting that turned into a shouting match will be given later.

Work on the Mobil Norway report started in earnest about the middle of September, but I still continued to work on the Beryl A project as well.  By the middle of October I was transferred over to the Mobil Norway Stafjord A  project for full time and started making trips to Stavanger.  I continued working on various power plant arrangements for Statfjord A applying all kinds of aero gas turbines.  Mobil engineer John Schoentlhaler was keen on using the Turbo Power and Marine GG 4 and by the middle of November he on his own hired Lou Fougere, (ex GE engineer)  president of Fern Engineering of Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, to make a detailed engineering study comparing the GG 4 with other types of aero gas turbines, in particular the GE LM2500.

By this time all the various gas turbine and compressor vendors knew I was making the study for the gas turbines and compressors.  They all started calling me to take me out to lunch and dinner.  I even got phone calls from my old GE Houston salesman friend Sam McKinney who was at the time Mayor of Belleaire, near Houston, trying to get me to recommend the heavy duty gas turbines for the platform.

On December 10th I met with Lou Fougere at his Fern Engineering office in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts and reviewed his aero gas turbine report that John Schulenthaler had ordered.  It was very comprehensive and said the GG 4 materials used were every bit as good as those used for the GE LM2500.  However, I knew that the GG 4 used carbon seals with a limited life of only 8000 hours before requiring an overhaul and the LM2500 used labyrinth seals with much longer life of over 20,000.  I met with the Turbo Power and Marine engineers all afternoon discussing the GG 4s.  I reported by phone to John Schoenthaler in Norway of the meeting.  I spent the next day with the Rolls Royce engineers along with Lou Fougers discussing the Olympus aero gas turbine and then flew back to London that evening.  As a point of interest, I had been to Phoenix, Arizona to attend my mother's funeral on December 7th.  And after the December 10th 

These happenings and meetings show how busy I was working for Mobil.  On December 14th I attended a big Christmas dinner in Stavanger with my Norwegian friends to boot.  On December 18th and 19th Lou Fougere and Walt Wadsworth were in London and we had  meetings dealing with the layout of the aero verses the heavy duty gas turbines.  Then on December 20th we all went to Rolls Royce in Coventry to see the Olympus factory.  After all this activity, on December 22nd I flew back to Houston for Christmas.  What a whirl-wind life I was leading.

On January lst, 1975 I was on a plane back to Stavanger for more meetings with Fern  Engineering on the 2nd.

 They were obviously pushing the P & W GG 4 machine.  On the 3rd  I had it out with them and told them to lay off.  I was getting mad and l said I would not recommend the GG 4 and would not consult for P & W while I was working for Mobil.

Saturday the 4th I worked hard all day on my report.  Time was running out.  The due date was approaching.  More meeting were taking place with the gas turbine venders.  More data was being accumulated.  I was making many investigative phone calls to my US gas turbine friends and recording more input for my report.  We even met with the vendors on Saturday the 11th.  I kept on writing the report and working with Arne Erichen.  We were leaning toward recommending the GE LM2500 with its aero 3600 RPM power turbine which had never been used to drive an electric generator before.

I returned to Houston on January 18th.  We had been planning a US cross country field trip to visit various gas turbine plants and aero gas turbine installations.  The trip was taking place when I was home in Houston.  I planned the various visits, made the arrangements, got the private jets and made all the necessary phone calls to my friends in the US.

On Monday, January 27th  Bob Bolfing of Mobil and I flew to Cincinnati, Ohio and met Johnny Miller of GE at the airport.  At our hotel we then joined up with Arne Erichen of Statoil and Bernie Evans of Mobil, London.  The next day we all flew to Deuluth, Minnesota on VP Gerhard Neumann 's  private GE Falcon Fan Jet to visit Great Lakes Pipeline's Cloquet, Minnesota Station to see a GE LM 2500 and a LM l500 run, both pumping natural gas.  We talked with the station operators and obtained much valuable operating and maintenance information.  We then went back to the airport and met Turbo Power and Marine people – Dave Caplow et al and flew to P & W's Hartford, Connecticut airport in a chartered Lear Jet and checked in at a Hotel.  We had a strong tail wind and flew at 40,000 feet at 750 miles per hour.  I sat in the jumper seat behind the pilot and had a wonderful view.

The next morning Dave Caplow took us to their plant and were showed around.  We were  presented the story of the GG 4 C-l.  We then visited Hartford Power and Light plant and saw a GG 4 running.  In the afternoon we all flew in the Lear Jet to Calgary, Canada, but had to stop at Green Bay,Wisconsin to re fuel as we now had a strong head wind and could only fly at about 450 miles per hour.  We had a long day so after dinner we all turned in.  January 30th, the next day, we got up, went to the airport and took an Aztec Piper twin engine prop plane to the Princess Station and saw another GG4 C-1 jet pumping gas.  On the side, the operators said they preferred the GE LM2500 much better than the GG 4.  We then went back and caught the GE Falcon Fan Jet to San Francisco and checked in at the St. Francis Hotel, ate at the Fisherman's Wharf and then went to bed.

The next morning we drove to the Dow Chemical plant and talked with the operators there about their GG 4s – 9 units they had.   It was then back to the airport to fly in the Falcon to Glendale, California.  Most of us were tired, but Arne Erichen and Bernie Evans took off and toured Hollywood.  This was a big  thrill to them because of the movies they had seen.  The next morning we visited the City of Glendale Power Plant.  This plant had a Curtiss Wright power turbine installed driven by a GG 4.  The operators told us about having bleed valve and control problems.

It was now Saturday, February 1st, the next morning.  We went to the airport and flew back to Houston, Texas on the same GE Falcon Jet.  Carolyn met us at the airport, terminal A.  Boy, was I ever so glad to be home again, but I still had all my trip reports to write up.  But first it was another party at Bob Bolfing's house and so we got home about l:00 in the morning.  In the morning we went to late church and then took Bernie Evans and Arne Erichen to NASA in the early afternoon and to the famous Asrodomed Stadium.

Saga of the first GE LM2500 powering a BRUSH ac generator

The European Union (EU) blocked the takeover of Alstom until GE made arrangements to spin off the Alstom mature GT26 and the new GT36 single shaft gas turbine in its final stages of design. The EU was afraid of a GE monopoly for 50 Hz gas turbines. GE had no way out so elected to deal with the well established Italian gas turbine and power equipment company (since 1853) called Ansaldo Energia and also including PSM headquartered in Jupiter, Florida which is a full service and advanced design and technology provider to gas turbine power plants.

Ansaldo Energia is 40 % owned by Shanghigh Electric of China. A deal was struck but GE retained the rights for the 60 Hz GT24, but will probably abandon it. Immediately there were some skeptics that though that this company would not have the means to move forward with either unit. They were wrong.

The parent company Ansaldo Energia of Italy formed a new subsidary company called Ansaldo Energia Switzerland (AES) to make and sell the GT26 and complete the design of the 50 Hz GT36, fully test it and then market it. The new GT36 was designed to compete directly with the latest 50 Hz gas turbines of GE, MHI and Siemens.

The new GT36 incorporates the PSM Florida designed FlameSheet sequential combustion system which has been well proven in the GT aftermarket for GE and W gas turbines.

On March 11, 2016, Ansaldo Energia Switzerland announced in a news release that it had received two contracts for 8 new GT26 gas turbine generator sets and other equipment for combined cycle duty worth 600 million Euros split for two separate CCPP power plants, one for Ibri and the other for Sohar. The power will be fed to the Sultanate of Oman grid.

Juerg Schmidli, the Ansaldo Energia Switzerland new president, said this: “With its operating flexibility and high efficiency, the GT26 gas turbine will play a critical role in generating maximum project returns for our customer. This is the perfect start for our newly formed Company Ansaldo Energia Switzerland”.

Other news sources indicate that the supply chain for the GT26 parts will continue to remain the same as before coming from Germany, France and other places. The current Ansaldo Energia Switzerland version of the GT26 will be rated 345 MW ISO with an efficiency of 41% and in the CC mode 502 MW for 1x1 with an efficiency of 60.1 % ISO. This maximum efficiency is about one point lower than the competitor GTs, but the Reheat GT26 has a better part load CC efficiency and a better turn down with 15 % CC load during periods of low power demand. The GT26 also has great potential for uprating to the “J” class machines in the not too distant future and even a greater potential when the new CMC ceramic parts come into full use and production.

The reheat GT has more to gain than the simple cycle because of the dual combustion and duel cooling load requirements.

The reheat GT26 with this new Ansaldo Energia Switzerland order indicates that this reheat concept will remain alive and will be available to all 50 Hz users, especially with potential for China. As a point of interest as to the success of the reheat (sequential combustion) GT24 and GT26 gas turbines there is a fleet of over 90 units with over 3.4 million fired hours and 44,000 starts located around the World generating Tesla/Westinghouse AC electric power. Therefore it is important to the World that this technology be preserved and expanded with the use of new machining technologies such as 3D printing and new hot gas parts made of the new CMC materials.

The new GT36 is reported to be on the test stand in Switzerland undergoing tests of all kinds. It is reported to have a new type combustion system developed by the PSM Florida subsidiary of Ansaldo Energia. It is a sequential burn design having two burns which makes it possible to have low NOX at reduced flame temperature outlets. Some details were given at a recent gas turbine European conference but full details will be forthcoming after the Switzerland tests have been completed.

ASME paper GT 2016-56696 presented at TurboExpo in Seoul, Korea details the design and rig validation.

In the near future a full review of the new GT36 will be made available by Ansaldo Energia Switzerland. It will be interesting to see just how it will compete with the other Big Three gas turbines.

(With inputs from Septimus Van der Linden)